


The Porch

by mnwood



Series: Seeking Friendship 'Verse [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Asexual Castiel, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Death from Old Age, Domestic, Fluff, Growing Old Together, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 15:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2552285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnwood/pseuds/mnwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas takes up gardening, and Dean takes up watching Cas work. It's only logical to build a back porch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Porch

**Author's Note:**

> Don't let the warning scare you - it's happy, I promise.

Dean’s not exactly “thrilled” about this project he decided to take on. 

Sure, building things is fun. Being outside in the yard is fun. Soaking up the sunshine, getting a good workout—yeah, totally fun.

Except for the part where it’s not even the slightest bit fun at all. Dean turned 40 two months ago, and he _swears_ it’s made a difference. This happened when he hit 30, too. He suddenly put on 20 pounds in a month and actually caved when Cas told him he needed to change his habits if he wanted to keep on living. (Cas, who was at his heaviest at the time and had absolutely no room to talk.) So 30 was the weight and now 40 is the _pain._ He can’t be on his knees for extended periods of time without them locking up and hurting for the rest of the day. He’s got serious lower back pain (“It’s because your stomach’s too heavy,” _“I’m thinner than you, asshole!”)_ and he wakes up sore if he and Cas don’t move enough during the night. He’s got just as much energy as ever, but he crashes really hard _really_ quickly. And on top of all that his hair is turning gray.

So yeah, when he decided on a whim to build a back porch on their house, he didn’t really think about how not fun it would be. In fact, he wasn’t really thinking about much at all other than how nice it would be to have a place to sit and watch Cas work in the yard.

Cas had picked up gardening as his midlife crisis—and not even the practical type of gardening either. He only liked planting flowers. Their backyard looked like a fucking arboretum at a 200-year-old university. Over the past couple of years they had accumulated a small gazebo, different layers of flowers mounted on stonewalls, and there was even a small pond in the middle of it all. It was so ridiculous that their neighbors often asked if they could take Easter pictures, prom pictures, engagement pictures, whatever-the-fuck kind of pictures in their backyard. Cas absolutely loved that backyard.

Dean hadn’t even thought about it when they moved into this house a few years ago. A backyard was a backyard, and sure, he liked mowing the grass sometimes, but when he came home from work one day to find Cas staring intently at the large plot of boring grass, he knew it wasn’t going to stay that way for long. Cas works about 10 hours fewer than Dean per week, so he’s got the extra time. And they both make bank, Cas as a book publisher and Dean working for an aerospace company. (Fucking _aerospace._ He fucking hates flying and he’s a goddamn aerospace engineer just because it for some reason sounded slightly more enticing than the automotive industry.) In any case, Dean wasn’t the least bit surprised the day he came home to find his husband elbows-deep in the dirt, wearing a torn-up pair of Dean’s jeans and huge-ass gloves.

That first day Dean had stood in the back doorway for a solid hour watching Cas work. He didn’t even say anything, and Cas didn’t notice him until about half an hour into it.

“Oh. Dean. I didn’t even know you were home,” Cas had said with a smile as he made his way over to Dean for a kiss.

Dean had stepped back and grimaced at how dirty Cas was, but then he kissed him anyway. It was a longstanding routine between them that he certainly wasn’t going to let a little dirt interrupt. “Decide to pick up a new hobby?”

“I did apparently. What do you think?”

“I think you’ve done a pretty good job of tearing up the yard.” 

Cas rolled his eyes and started to turn away, but Dean grabbed him by the hem of his shirt and said, “Hey. You look pretty damn cute out there.”

“I look pretty damn cute everywhere, Dean. We’ve known this for nearly 20 years.”

It became a new routine rather quickly. Dean would try to get home from work as early as possible so as not to miss out on watching Cas work in the yard. Sometimes Dean would even pull up a chair right in the doorway and work on his laptop while they made easy conversation with one another. It’s literally been two years of this, and Dean’s finally getting around to building this damn porch.

He overreached with his first plan of extending the porch all the way from the edge of the kitchen to the end of the living room. It wasn’t until he was standing in the lumber aisle of Lowe’s that he realized he wasn’t going to get 18-foot sheets of wood for the flooring…because…they don’t make…boards that long. Also, how the fuck he expected to fit those boards in the Chevy Colorado he’s currently borrowing is a mystery to him.

He decided to make the porch 10’ long by 8’ deep, which still meant that he had to make compromises, and he pretty much spent three days doing math until he _finally_ had it right.

It was wrong. When he got outside and actually started mapping everything out, he was off by several inches in some places, and that would just not do for making a cut list that he can trust.

He had already been to Lowe’s three times before he even started on this project.

The day he came home with everything he needed and was actually excited to get started was the day he realized he never accounted for building a foundation.

Goddamn it.

After the fourth trip to Lowe’s, he was actually totally and completely ready to begin.

After an hour of digging in fucking concrete, Dean wondered why the hell he didn’t get a contractor for this. Again, he and Cas are loaded what with the cushy jobs and lack of children (Sam’s kids don’t _really_ count) or particularly extravagant lifestyles (that was _one time_ they went to Italy for their anniversary— _one time)_ so why Dean is doing this himself is a fucking joke.

And after a week of getting absolutely nowhere other than begging Cas for a massage every night (success rate: 75 percent), Dean decided to do more planning and organizing before trying to build anything else.

He’s nothing if not stubborn, so he doesn’t ever call anybody for help. He’s the one who wants the damn porch, so he’s going to be the one to build it, damn it.

(Also, he already gets made fun of enough for how dopey he is around Cas. He really doesn’t want to have to explain to anyone ever that he needs help building a porch on his house so he can watch his cute husband work in their yard all the time. Cas is already mocking him enough for it as it is.)

If he’s calculated all the time correctly (a month and three days), then he should be able to finish this fucking thing this week. Unfortunately he’s in the middle of drilling in a particularly finicky screw when the drill slips and goes right into his hand.

It’s not the worst pain he’s ever experienced, but it’s bleeding pretty severely and took a solid chunk of his skin out, so he runs inside to take care of it. 

He hears Cas come in a couple minutes later while he’s cleaning out the wound and assessing how bad the damage is. 

“Dean? Where’d you go?”

“I’m in the kitchen. Screw gun nicked me,” Dean calls back. 

Cas appears a moment later right at Dean’s back and takes hold of his hurt hand. “Here, allow me.”

Dean turns and relaxes at Cas’ touch. “Fucking screw wouldn’t go in.”

“You probably stripped it. You have to be more careful about where you put your hands, Dean.”

“Thanks, _Mom._ I’ll make sure to look both ways before crossing the street, too.” 

Cas gives him a stern look and says, “This project is making you grumpy.”

“Can’t really argue with that,” Dean mumbles. 

Cas lets go of Dean’s hand and gets a first aid kit. “Finish up whatever you were working on today, and then let me take care of you tonight. Does that sound good?”

Dean nods shyly. “Sorry I’ve been a jerk lately, Cas.”

“It’s fine. I know this is stressing you out, so let me make it better.”

Dean nods again, and then Cas pulls his face down to kiss his forehead.

“Let’s go back outside. Your hand feel all right?”

“Yeah. Quit babying me, dude.”

“You love it.”

“Yeah, kind of,” Dean admits with a bump to Cas’ hip.

They’re coming up on their 16th anniversary. Sixteen fucking years of marriage, and Cas still manages to make Dean blush at least once a week.

They both work outside for just a few more minutes before Cas calls the shower first and tells Dean to relax while he makes dinner.

It’s grilled cheese and tomato soup—one of Dean’s favorite meals and one of only three things Cas makes _really_ well—and they eat quietly at the kitchen table, staring at each other between bites and not really saying much at all.

When they’re done, Cas pulls a slice of pie out of the fridge and heats it up in the microwave before setting it in front of Dean. “I keep this in case of emergencies,” he explains. 

“You’re too good to me, you know that?”

“Be quiet and eat your pie.”

“No dessert for you?”

“I’m trying to cut back, remember?”

Dean huffs a laugh and takes a huge bite. Cas was always trying some new dietary restriction that kept his weight in a constant state of flux. It was ridiculous.

Dean’s comfortably full by the time he finishes, and Cas lets him sit and settle for a minute before taking his hand and leading him upstairs to their bedroom.

Without saying anything, Cas leads Dean into the master bathroom and turns on the bath before ridding Dean of his clothes.

“This feels awfully sexy, Cas,” Dean comments as Cas pulls his boxers down and Dean steps out of them.

“Please. Like we’ve never seen each other naked before.”

It’s true. It was awkward that first time—their honeymoon. They were drunk and the shower in their hotel in Hawaii was too damn nice to pass up being in it together. They had awkwardly tried not to focus too heavily on each other’s dicks, but then they finally caved and washed each other’s bodies head to toe. It was probably the most intimate they had ever been at the time, and the drunkenness slightly hindered the moment. They made up for it the next day when they did the same thing again but sober.

Now they sleep naked most nights of the week, walk naked around the house on weekend mornings, shower together occasionally—nakedness is very much common in the Winchester/Novak household. They might not have any sexual interest in one another, but aesthetically speaking…that’s a different story.

“Get in the tub,” Cas says softly as he pulls a short stool up behind the bath and takes a seat.

“Oh, you’re not getting naked, too? How is this fair?” Dean complains, stepping into the tub and lying back against the porcelain. He closes his eyes and lets out a moan when he realizes how perfect this bath is. He forgot how good Cas is at this kind of crap.

From behind him, Cas’ hands wrap around his shoulders and begin massaging the tense muscles. “Your muscles have grown from the work you’ve been doing.”

“Jealous?”

“Why would I be jealous? I’m the one who gets to enjoy them,” Cas responds with a kiss to Dean’s hair. “You’ve always been strong, though. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”

“Oh, yeah? What are some of your other favorite things about me?” Dean asks smugly, tilting his head back so he can look up at Cas upside down.

“How deceptively soft you are, too. It’s like hugging a memory foam pillow.” 

“All right, let’s go back to that thing about me being strong, huh?”

Cas laughs and kisses Dean on the lips.

“Spider-man kiss, hell yeah.” 

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

They’re quiet for a while, save for Cas telling Dean to go under so he can wash his hair properly. Dean hums in appreciation the entire time Cas runs his shampoo-covered fingers through his hair, and he legitimately whines when the touch is gone. 

But then he stands and moves onto washing Dean’s entire body, and that’s even better. 

“Here,” Cas says, handing Dean a toy boat.

“What is this?” 

“It’s a boat for you to play with. I meant to give it to you earlier.”

“You do know I’m 40 years old, right?” 

“Yes, and I also know that for your 34th birthday you asked for a Nintendo 64 so you could play Mario Kart every day after work until you promptly broke it.” 

Dean rolls his eyes and looks down at the boat in his hands. _Fine,_ he thinks before setting it in the water and pushing it around.

Cas kneels next to the tub and continues washing Dean, this time with a warm washcloth instead of a loofah. “Do you remember our seventh anniversary?”

“Baby, I don’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday.”

“We went to that sushi place—I ate too much and got food poisoning—” 

“I had to carry you up three flights of stairs to our apartment. Yeah, I remember.”

Cas shakes his head and ruffles the washcloth into Dean’s hair. “I weighed what, like 200 at the time?”

“No, it was definitely more like 220. You were _way_ bigger than me at that point. Remember, ‘cause you lost 10 pounds just from being sick.”

“Oh yes, that was by far one of my heavier years,” Cas says grimly. “But do you remember what you did for me?”

“Aside from nearly breaking my back carrying your fat ass up the stairs?”

Cas pushes down on the top of Dean’s head until he’s under water. Dean flicks water at Cas when he comes back up. “Yeah, I remember taking care of you.”

“You were so gentle with me, like you were afraid I might break.”

“Hey, you would be, too, if you saw how you were. You looked so pale and weak, I didn’t know what to do.”

“But you _did_ know what to do. I was back up within 24 hours.”

“All I did was make you soup, Cas.” 

Cas rubs his thumb along Dean’s cheek. “You rubbed my back while I vomited for two hours straight. You gave me heating pads and medicine and you bathed me and held me in your arms while I cried. You told me I was perfect and beautiful and that I was going to be OK.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Dean asks awkwardly, still pushing the boat around to avoid looking at Cas.

“I don’t know, I was just thinking about it. It’s my favorite anniversary we’ve had.” 

Dean turns a skeptical look on his husband. “Really? I bought you a car for our 10th. I took you to that fucking bee farm you begged to see for our 12th.”

“So _now_ you remember everything?” Cas accuses.

Dean flicks more water at Cas, and Cas shoves the towel in his face.

“What’s _your_ favorite anniversary?” Cas asks.

Dean looks up at the ceiling and purses his lips in thought. Then he says, “Breckenridge.”

“Typical.”

“Oh come _on,_ it was awesome.”

“We were high for three days straight, Dean.”

“Exactly. That was what, our ninth? First time we had smoked since college.”

“For good reason. We paid all that money to ski for an hour—”

“And then we were too sore to do anything but sit in our hotel room and watch old Zac Efron movies. It was _awesome.”_

Cas starts laughing way too hard then and explains, “Remember—remember how fucking confused you got during _Charlie St. Cloud?”_

“He had sex with a ghost! He literally had sex with a dead person. How could anyone ever have sex with someone after that? Seriously, tell me how.” 

Cas is laughing too hard to answer, and he puts his arms on the edge of the tub and rests his chin on them to compose himself.

“Thanks for all this, Cas,” Dean says quietly after a few minutes. He’s still pushing the little boat around in front of him.

“Is your hand feeling better?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, it feels fine.”

Cas stands and cracks his knees before leaning down to kiss Dean on the forehead.

Dean takes the opportunity to pull Cas right into the tub with him. Half the water pours out, and Cas is heavy and awkward and they bump all over the place but when they’re settled Dean’s got his husband pressed up against his chest, hair soaked and clothes clinging to his skin. 

“Sorry,” Dean says with a smile.

“Liar.”

Dean reaches behind Cas and peels his shirt up over his head and throws it on the floor. “That’s better.”

“This water has gotten significantly colder.”

“Yeah, maybe we should get out,” Dean says between kisses. 

“Dean—I—have—other—things planned.”

Dean tells Cas to shut up, and then he hugs him to his chest and runs his fingers through his hair for a couple minutes until it really is too uncomfortable to stay.

They dry each other off and slip into robes when they get out, and then it’s a shuffle to get ready for bed just like every other night. (They’ve been talking about renovating the bathroom to have separate sinks for years. They haven’t done it yet because they both secretly like awkwardly maneuvering around each other every night.)

They shuck the robes before crawling into bed, and Cas tells Dean to lie on his stomach.

Dean does so eagerly, and Cas straddles his back and pours lotion into his hands before beginning his massage.

“More pressure, please,” Dean mumbles into the mattress.

“I am constantly amazed at how good you are at being pampered.”

“Mmm.”

“Have you been working shirtless when I’m not here?”

“Huh?" 

“Your freckles—the ones on your back, they are more prominent than usual.”

“Mmm—kay.”

Cas sighs and stops talking after that. Dean’s pretty much incapable of higher brain function when Cas’ hands are on his skin.

Dean wakes up the next morning having no memory of ever falling asleep. He and Cas are facing each other, their legs all kinds of tangled together. Cas is still asleep, so Dean wakes him up with kisses all up his chest and to his neck and jaw.

Cas groans and wraps his arms around Dean’s bare back to pull him closer. “Time is it?”

“Early. I’m going to keep kissing you until we absolutely have to get up, OK?”

“Yes, good.”

It’s a little weird when they wake up like this—naked and affectionate and occasionally sporting some morning wood that they inevitably ignore. It’s just strange to be this unbelievably _close_ to another human being. As Dean licks and bites and kisses his husband’s soft skin, he’s hit with the realization that he never expected to have this 20 years ago. He never even let himself imagine it. And now here it is. Every day of his life.

They of course stay in bed too long and so it’s a mad scramble to get out of the house and off to work.

A couple people ask what happened to Dean’s hand, and he laughs as he explains the porch-building project. He doesn’t even have to be prompted to tell them he’s building it because he likes watching Cas work in the backyard.

People look at him funny when he says that, and it’s at this point he realizes that most people aren’t this sappy and ridiculous 16 years into a marriage. 

Whatever. He and Cas might not have a perfect relationship, but at least they’re as excited about each other as they were the first time they accidentally fell asleep in a bed together in college. 

Dean gets off work fairly early and makes up for all the work on the porch he didn’t get to yesterday from hurting his hand. By the time dinner’s ready to be taken out of the crock pot, he’s back on schedule to finish by the end of the week.

Sure enough, on Friday at 7:08 p.m., Dean closes the can of sealer and tosses out his paintbrush and tells Cas to “get over here.”

Cas is all covered in dirt and sweat, but Dean doesn’t care as he throws his arm around his shoulder and pulls him against his side, forcing Cas to turn sideways and wrap both arms around his middle.

“Finished?” Cas asks way too casually.

“You’re damn right I am. Ain’t she pretty?” 

“Gorgeous. You want to go into town tomorrow to look for some outdoor furniture?” 

“Hell yeah.”

“OK. I’m proud of you, Dean.” Cas reaches up and kisses Dean on the cheek. “Now you can be as creepy as you want and nobody will know the difference.”

The following Monday, Dean cracks open a beer, takes a seat and props his feet up on the railing as he watches Cas work. It’s a particularly warm day, and Cas has his ridiculous cut-off jean shorts on that no man over the age of 40 (or 25 for that matter) should own. Nonetheless, Dean is enjoying the view. 

“Are you staring at my ass?” Cas calls as he bends down to rip up a weed.

“What do you think?”

“I’m not sure I like this new porch.”

“Well, get used to it.”

They eat dinner on the porch that night, and the night after that. Sometimes Cas will finish working early and plop down in Dean’s lap to kiss for a while, and Dean nominally always acts like the dirt bothers him.

They have birthday parties and Christmases and random get-togethers out on that porch for years.

When a railing or a floorboard breaks, Dean immediately fixes them.

When weather starts to wear on the wood, he sands it down, stains it again and adds a generous coat of polyurethane.

He adds a porch swing at one point, and he and Cas spend hours on it at a time until one night it breaks on Cas’ side and they slide on top of each other.

Their nieces and nephews practically grow up on that porch, inviting friends over and even having their graduation parties there.

When Sam and his wife visit without the kids, the four of them sit on the porch and talk and laugh well into the night.

Cas never really slows down on the gardening, so Dean never stops sitting out on that porch most days.

Even when they finally renovate the house, redecorate it, refurbish it—the porch stays pretty much the same.

When their nieces and nephews start having kids, they come over and play on the porch, too.

When they’re old and gray and a little bit deaf, they sit out on that porch and play card games like the cliché that they are.

And when Cas gets sick…

Dean takes care of him on that porch and makes sure he gets to watch the sun set every day and they sit in silence, rocking in their chairs for hours at a time.

They reminisce about younger days and all the memories they’ve shared together and all the shit they’ve been through. They tell each other how much they love the other as often as possible, because any time could be their last.

Cas passes away in his sleep on that porch at age 86, just as beautiful and exciting as the day Dean met him.

Dean tries. He tries to keep on living for Sammy’s sake, and for Sammy's kids and grand kids. 

But after 61 years of marriage, it’s just too hard.

Dean passes away in his sleep on that porch, age 85.

**Author's Note:**

> WELL this went in an entirely different direction than anticipated. I really don't want to say goodbye to this story, but it was time to move on. Also, the porch idea came from another fic ([The Story of You and Me](http://archiveofourown.org/works/985737/chapters/1942668)), and I promised my friend Rachel that I would write it for her one day.
> 
> I'm [deancasheadcanons](http://deancasheadcanons.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and [this is my website.](https://maddmadeshop.com/)
> 
> [Rebloggable link](http://deancasheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/101591883821/ao3-seeking-friendship-verse-part-3-in-honor)


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